It is heartbreaking that road accidents and the number of people dying on our roads are both on the increase. These accidents never fail to make headlines in newspapers and online. People, mostly the young, are dying needlessly. Brig. Gen. Ali Al-Rashidi, director of traffic safety at the General Traffic Department, said road accidents result in annual losses of SR20 billion. He also said that drivers are responsible for 90 percent of accidents, and that 60 percent of accidents outside cities are due to people speeding and failing to observe the proper safety rules. Al-Rashidi recently spoke about traffic safety during a workshop on the role of young men in ensuring safer roads. Accidents caused by drivers using their cell phones have dramatically increased, he said, adding that drivers who use their cell phones when driving are four times more likely to be involved in an accident than drivers who do not use their phones. Texting and sending messages via WhatsApp make drivers 10 times more susceptible to being involved in a road accident when compared to those who do not use WhatsApp while driving. Riyadh Health Affairs Directorate says that around 20 people die in road accidents in the Kingdom every day and that many are injured and some left seriously disabled. These are frightening figures. We need draconian measures to protect innocent lives. Traffic officials must take stern action against violators. They have done a good job so far, especially in dealing with the problem of young men engaged in car drifting. The campaigns they launched against this have been fruitful as the number of fatalities due to drifting has decreased. We need very strict rules and regulations to monitor cell phone use while driving and speed limits in parts of the city where speed cameras have not been installed. A stringent system needs to be in place to keep a check on traffic violations and all the other negative practices that drivers indulge in. We must safeguard our youth. Their lives are precious. Expatriate workers also seem to drive dangerously on roads as well. Many of them are employed as taxi, bus and lorry drivers. Thousands of expatriates drive cars that seem very unroadworthy, something that perhaps increases the likelihood of accidents happening. They are not fully aware of traffic rules. However, if traffic police imposed fines and penalties on them, they would soon get their act together.
